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I got my first computer in ’89, a AMIGA 500! My first very own computer which I loved and used year over year (and I still have it). I will never forget the classic Demo IRAQ by Animators which is one of my absolute favourites as I still follow the scene through the decades. Just got me more into computers as well as games like Giana Sisters, Silkworm, Maniac Mansion and many more. That’s why I am a big fan of all those emulators for different system out there.

Probably the most successful is the Nintendo Wii. Wait? What, the “New-Gen” Wii Console? Yes, this Nintendo Wii! With it’s Wii-Shop Channel it offers you the ability to download-to-own all those great old games from the NES, SNES, Turbografx, MegaDrive and many more. “The Legend of Zelda”, “Super Metroid”, The “Castlevania” Series, “Altered Beast”, “Golden Axe” to name some. Actually as I think the games are pretty expensive (5€ for the cheapest games, up to 10€) measured by their age, I already have spent to much money and time on them and probably will much more ^^’.
For those who do not own a Wii or want to play other old games I collected some common known good emulators.

ScummVMTo those who remember the SCUMM System I would point out the ScummVM Project. And to all you others: Damn scumbags ^^’! Read and learn!
Scumm was LucasArts’ (LucasFilm at that time) Adventure Scripting Engine. Fabulous games as Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island and Indiana Jones are based on it! Written also by Ron Gilbert, who just announced his new project, it was one surety for the success of LucasFilms at that time (besides Gilbert and Schafer). So who loved those old skool games and many more back then (Beneath a Steel Sky, Flight of the Amazon Queen to name a few), go ahead and download ScummVM.
ScummVM is a Virtual Machine that emulates all old gaming frameworks (mainly SCUMM but many have been implemented like Sierras AIG …) to allow you to play all those original Adventures that gave us so much fun. It is available for several platforms on the market, not only the PC but UNIX, MacOS X, NDS, Symbian, Amiga and so on.

PicoDriveAnother great emulator for PDAs and Symbian Phones is PicoDrive. It emulates an old Sega MegaDrive/Genesis System to allow you to play classics like Sonic – The Hedgehog or Golden Axe.
The Cyclone 68000 based emulator for WM PDAs is just one example of those many many emulators for nearly every system that was ever build. But especially on a good Symbian Phone this is just fun. To play Ghouls’n’Ghosts or Sonic or Streets of Rage (The Original) is sometimes better than playing through graphically great but boring nowadays games.

PCSX2
A more modern approach for emulation is PCSX2, a Playstation 2 emulator for Windows PCs. Playstation 2? you might ask. Yes, the PS2! The PS2 that still is being sold by Sony Computer Entertainment to compensate the PS3 sales. And as such the emulator works better every new release but has the flaw that it needs an original PS2 BIOS, and those are solely copyrighted to Sony. Therefore the emulator is somewhat legal but delivered without a PS2 BIOS. But today’s computer generation probably know enough possibilities to find these, but I am so not encouraging this ^^#.
As said the emulator works good. Not perfect, but good. An overview of the games that are playable, PCSX2 has put up a compatibility chart. There are many games like Final Fantasy or Metal Gear that are nearly flawlessly playable. But one requirement is a very good computer as the emulator and it’s plugins need a good load of CPU Power!

WinUAE and TBL Demos
As introduction I told you about my old Amiga500 and the Demos I loved to watch. I still love the Scene and it’s outcome. One of my favourite groups throughout the years are TBL, The Black Lotus.
Those magicians at the keyboard have created more masterpieces than Kubrick or Spielberg. And even if they made some PC Demos over the years, there best works are on the Amiga System. Silkcut, Starstruck, Ocean Machine or Little Nell to point my favourites out (more on pouet.net). They fascinate by teasing out even the last crunch of the System, the last breath it can bare.
To watch those Demos you must have a Amiga System or you must stick with the screen caps. But there is one alternative: The WinUAE! The Amiga Emulator is commonly known to play most TBL Demos at a decent speed rate. Besides Demos you can also play games like those old Cinemaware classics. So this is probably a good solution to feel this old AmigaOS feeling.

TBL – Starstruck (Live from the Assembly 2006)

Again THX to all Site- and Emulator-Makers for their time and effort to give us this fun (and images). For a very good overview of all those Emulators around have a look at AEP Emu.